How I made it to Oracle as Application Developer 2
In conversation with Ashish Karn, a student of Programming Pathshala who has been working with Cognizant, a service based company and has finally made his transition to Oracle, a product based company. Read this blog to know more about his Interview Experience with Oracle and his Interview preparation journey with Renaissance: One-Stop solution to solve all your coding related worries!
#100Stories is a series of transformational stories of courage and indomitable will to excel, picked from the lives of tech students, particularly in India. Initiative by Programming Pathshala.
Hi Ashish, Glad to have you here! Can you please Introduce yourself?
Sure, Hi everyone, My name is Ashish Karn and I am from Patna, Bihar. I completed my Engineering in the year 2020 in Computer Science field. I have been working with Cognizant where I got placed through my Campus placements and have finally made my switch to Oracle as an Application Developer 2, which has always been my major aim to achieve.
I have been associated with Programming Pathshala for 2 years now and my experience has been Top-notch with Renaissance.
That’s great Ashish, so you have been a part of Programming Pathshala for 2 years now. Can you throw some light on your experience with us in this time-span?
I believe there are few students who come with some basic understanding of programming and coding from their college itself. Back when I joined Programming Pathshala, I was probably the weakest student in my batch. I was looking for guidance to learn DSA and one of my friends suggested this course to me.
It has been a journey full of Ups and Downs but it has been an amazing journey and also one such to remember.
Safe to say that you have built yourself from scratch here, Ashish.
Indeed, whatever I am today, I owe it to Programming Pathshala. It’s all due to my preparation with Renaissance that I have finally been able to make my shift from a Service based to a Product based company. I remember once Vivek bhaiya asked me to start with Peer Group Discussion and by then I didn’t even know what he meant by that. That’s how naive I was.
Incredible Ashish, coming to your journey to reaching Oracle, how has it been for you? Right from your college life itself to becoming the Application Developer 2 today.
So I belong to a Tier-3 college and I did not have many goal oriented people around me, like the ones who would also be striving hard to become an engineer. Most of my peers back then were care-free and didn’t care much about the placements. In my college, the usual thing was to learn any programming language, know some basics of Data Structure and you will get a job, in fact this is exactly what happened as well. We did not even have great alumni who we could look up-to and take inspiration from. I remember getting to know about DS Algo by my 4th year.
I got placed at Cognizant through my college placements and as we all know that it is a Service based company, my experience has been somewhat fine. I had to struggle to make time from work and study simultaneously, being in a service based company, I also had to build my foundation for a Product based company from scratch.
Exactly, coming to your work-life Balance, as you were a working professional, so how did you cope up with the Time Management and achieved your transition to a Product based company.
It has definitely been a journey full of challenges, I sometimes had too many projects in my hand that I would not be able to concentrate on my studies for 10–15 days straight and after that I would feel overwhelmed with everything that would pile up in those days. I soon began to realise this issue and started working upon it. I made sure to do at least 1 problem everyday or watch 1 lecture at-least.
Even if it is very hectic for me at times, I made sure to not pile up things on my end and keep solving problems or watching videos, consistently.
Sounds Amazing Ashish, and how has been your Interview Experience with Oracle for the role of Application Developer 2?
I got a call from the Recruiter from one of my job platform profiles and he asked about my experience etc. After that, my profile got shortlisted and I was further evaluated based upon my DS Algo skills with 3 more rounds of Interview. The Interview lasted for about 5 hours on the same day and the difficulty level of questions was somewhat around medium level Leetcode questions.
And how has been your experience with our course Renaissance?
Honestly, my experience with this course has been great. We all know that there are a lot of resources available online, you search for 1 question and will fall into a valley of questions pertaining to similar research as yours, but sometimes, more than those resources you need to have a place which you can call home, a place where people are concerned about your growth. As I said, there are no less resources available in online today’s date, but all that matters is the guidance you receive when you are enrolled in one such course.
My equation with all the 3 Co-founders has been amazing. To me, Vivek bhaiya is like the God of teaching, Bharat bhaiya is like a big brother and Anoop bhaiya as a motivator. Mentors at Renaissance make sure that each student understands the course, they teach you in a pattern in which they will give you a problem and before giving its solution, they will ask you to solve it on your own with minimum hints. To your surprise, you will notice that you would be able to solve that question on your own with continuous efforts with the course. Here at Programming Pathshala, focus is given upon building your Problem-solving skills and making you an incredible Software/Application developer. I remember one day I was sitting idle and suddenly Anoop bhaiya’s text would pop up asking about my progress with the course and if everything was going smoothly or not. Such times would give me motivation and make me want to work harder than simply sitting idle.
As you mentioned that you struggled with keeping up with your motivation at times as you weren’t that great at coding initially, so how did you cope up with such times?
I started to make efforts consistently. I made sure to solve at least one problem or watch at least one video everyday before I call it off for that day and this has helped me immensely with my demotivating times. Texts from Anoop bhaiya at the time of self doubt also gave a boost to my preparation with Renaissance by Programming Pathshala.
Thank-you for being here Ashish, it has been a pleasure to hear about your Interview Experience with Oracle and your Journey with Renaissance. Before you leave, any word of advice for our budding SDE’s?
I would just advise everyone to maintain consistency and keep working on their goals regularly. Make sure to not pile up on things and keep solving at least one problem, or watch one video everyday!
Thankyou for that advice Ashish, take care :)
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